Many futurists and marketers have predicted that new technology ABC or some new process XYZ will radically change the world. There are several reasons why change does not get created, change is incremental instead of radical, change is developed but turns out not to be low impact and people can often be poor judges of …
Dharmendra S Modha’s, IBM Almaden, talk on his brain emulation project was one of the highlights of the 2008 Singularity Summit. The Brain Emulation Roadmap was not presented at the Singularity Summit but was recently published online and relates to the brain emulation work. IBM’s brain emulation project is able to carry out rat-scale simulations …
The Navy is soliciting bids for follow up experiments with Bussard inertial electrostatic fusion. [H/T IEC fusion tech The Naval Air Warfare Center, Weapons Division, China Lake, CA intends to procure on an other than full and open competition basis a service to provide: 1) Research of Electrostatic “Wiffle Ball” Fusion Device. The contractor is …
One of the major highlights of the Oct 25, 2008 Singularity summit was the presentation by Neil Gershenfeld, Director of MIT’s Center for Bits and Atoms One of the other highlights was on human brain emulation, which I have researched further here. The article below is on the work at MIT and other places for …
The zero energy future does not exist. This kind of future is often seriously discussed at peak oil sites, where they say that after say one hundred years there will be no more oil and civilization will revert to a pre-oil status. Biofuels are already here and can be scaled up. There is already over …
The EmDrive is highly controversial research in propulsion, which is being performed by a british inventor. It is now being funded by China, who have performed computer simulations which verify the experimental and theoretical work of the british inventor. Experiments and demonstration systems will be built over the next year which may provide more solid …
Carnegie Institution in Washington, D.C., has improved their diamond making process to enable thousand carat diamonds and larger. The largest cut diamond is 545.67 carats. The Carnegie team could take these synthetic diamonds and anneal them at temperatures up to 3,632 degrees Fahrenheit (2,000 degrees Celsius) at pressures below atmospheric pressure. The annealing process turns …
Intel’s CTO Justin Rattner had several highlights at this weekend’s Singularity Summit. 1. Claytronics catom components are now millimeter size in the lab and will be micron size in 5-10 years. 2. Intel will have all digital multi-radios in 2009. Digital components can be miniaturized far better than analog and can have benefits in terms …
Armadillo aerospace won the $350,000 lunar lander prize but missed the $1 million prize. Level 1 ($350,000) contest called for teams to fly their remote-controlled, rocket-powered landers up to a height of 50 meters (yards), hover for at least 90 seconds, land at another pad 100 meters (yards) away, refuel and then retrace the route …
1. Intel has made millimeter size 2d and 3d catoms for claytronics 2. Niel Gershenfeld, Center for Bits and Atoms at MIT, showed a programmable matter project. Small 3d objects would use local rules which would result in 100 cube components turning themselves into the shape of a wrench.3. Intel will be making all digital …
This weekend is when the Singularity Summit is being held in San Jose. Let us revisit the idea of technological singularity and the mundane singularity. Later this today there will be coverage of the Singularity Summit talks. Ray Kurzweil, defines the singularity as a period of extremely rapid technological progress. Robin Hanson, economist, proposes that …